


Drunk on the Taste of You

by lomku



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Blood, Blood Drinking, Dark Tony Stark, Implied/Referenced Sex, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Minor Character Death, Morally Ambiguous Tony Stark, POV Tony Stark, Pre-Slash, Self-Hatred, Suicidal Thoughts, Unreliable Narrator, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Vampire Tony Stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-20 13:07:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30005337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lomku/pseuds/lomku
Summary: Tony’s always been a man of excesses. He’s never been shy about enjoying himself, never passed an opportunity to find pleasure in a drug, in a drink, or in someone. He’s not used to being kept wanting. This time is different, though, because what he wants is Steve, and he can’t have him.He should rephrase that. What Tony wants is Steve’s blood. The super-serum-enhanced blood, to be even more precise. It’s suffocating, it’s all Tony can think about. He wants to wrap himself up in the smell, follow it to its source, sink his teeth into yielding flesh, and suck.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 12
Kudos: 52
Collections: SteveTony Acheronian Bingo 2021





	Drunk on the Taste of You

**Author's Note:**

> This is my fill for the STAB, card 1, square: "blood play/blood/gore".
> 
> If I had to summarize the fic in one sentence, I'd probably say: "the fic where Tony is extremely horny for Steve and his blood, but in an animalistic vampire kind of way." 
> 
> Mind the tags. If you don't like reading about blood, this is not for you. 
> 
> A big thank you to ghosthan for the beta work and encouragement <3

Tony’s always been a man of excesses. He’s never been shy about enjoying himself, never passed an opportunity to find pleasure in a drug, in a drink, or in someone. He’s not used to being kept wanting. This time is different, though, because what he wants is Steve, and he can’t have him. 

He should rephrase that. What Tony wants is Steve’s _blood_. The super-serum-enhanced blood, to be even more precise. The serum drives Tony crazy. It elevates the scent of Steve’s blood from enjoyable to tantalizing. It’s suffocating, it’s all Tony can think about. He wants to wrap himself up in the smell, follow it to its source, sink his teeth into yielding flesh, and _suck_.

Being around Steve is an exercise in self-restraint. Tony wants. He _needs_ Steve, not even sexually, (that is a lie), he needs to get his fangs on Steve, he can’t control himself. He gravitates toward Steve, circling and circling like a shark smelling blood in the water. Because that is precisely what he is. He’s looking, waiting for the smallest opening. At the tiniest hint of a weakness, he’ll be all over Steve. He knows it. He can feel it in his bones, in the stolen blood flowing through his veins. 

The transformation altered him: Tony is a predator, through and through. It made his bad qualities worse, and he knows it. He keeps away from people, mostly, because he learned that he can’t be trusted with anyone without a protective suit of armour.

* * *

Sometimes Tony doesn’t know who the Iron Man is supposed to be protecting. Is it a metal suit to keep the sunbeams from touching Tony? Or is it a walking prison to keep the bloodthirsty monster from tearing open the throat of the nearest civilian?

One of the first features that Tony designed for the suit was the air-filter. He can’t allow the slightest gas or odour to come through. If he smells blood, he’ll lose control, and in his line of work, there’s a lot of blood involved. His own, pulsing through his adrenaline-loaded veins in combat or leaking sluggishly from a head wound after Tony takes a nasty hit. The blood of his enemies, splattering up in elegant arcs when Tony forgoes the repulsor beams for some good old-fashioned bullets, a glistening trail on the ground, scarlet droplets on Iron Man, tiny rivulets between his fingers after he crushes a goon’s skull. 

Tony doesn’t let himself smell or taste them, but he allows himself to look. He lets himself imagine what it would taste like, still warm, sticky and liquid, coating his lips and sliding down his throat. The coppery smell would be everywhere. He would gag on it, the smell, and still stick his nose in the blood, inhale everything. 

He’s a rabid beast. 

Sometimes, there’s blood on civilians, frightened children and teenagers and adults, sobbing and pleading for help. When Iron Man swoops in, they open their arms in relief and cling to him in unconditional trust as he flies off with them. They’d be so easy to control. He’d fly up, high into the sky, carrying them away from safety and into his claws. Higher and higher, until they don’t have enough oxygen, until they gasp for air, their throat working beautifully. He would only need to open the faceplate, let them see his teeth, and their confused fear would turn into terror. They’d struggle, then cling to him even harder as they realised that they'd fall to their death if he let them go. He’d lower his neck. Maybe kiss their jaw, lightly, before trailing down until he found the jugular. He’d bite them slowly, let them feel every millimetre of his teeth sinking in. Maybe they’d trash, or scream, or maybe they’d freeze, baser instincts telling them what he knew all along: that they were prey, and he was a predator. He’d take his time, sip slowly, languorously, until their grip on his armour slackened, faltered, slipped away. 

He’d drink until he was sated, and then he would dump their body somewhere it would never be found. He’d fly down, and go back into the fight, and no one would have noticed that he’d been gone for at least fifteen minutes. 

Of course, Tony would never do that. He’s part of a team, can’t just disappear in the middle of a fight. He’s not exactly inconspicuous. Besides, he’s supposed to save the civilians, not drink them. It wouldn’t do to put SHIELD on his back. 

The trickiest part about blood, though, is when it’s his teammates’ blood. Because civilians he can drop off and forget, but his team is never far. Right next to him in the Quinjet, sitting on the same couch on movie nights, smelling like blood and painkillers and disinfectant. Sometimes the bandages peek through their clothes. Sometimes they’re stained red. Tony can’t allow himself to look at them for too long lest he gets lost in his need. 

He wants. 

He wouldn’t stand a chance against the Hulk; or Thor. He knows when he’s outclassed. The Hulk would smell his intent from a mile away, and only one of them is indestructible. As for Thor, well, Tony isn’t arrogant enough to think he can win a fight against a thousand-year-old warrior god. 

The others, though… They’re dangerous, yes, but Tony’s faster. And stronger. He could snap Clint’s neck in the blink of an eye. Natasha, if she saw him coming, would prove more of a challenge. Tony would let her tire herself out, then he’d sweep in, hold her down, and bite at her femoral artery, let her bleed out.

He doesn't know if he is stronger than Steve, though. He gets so overwhelmed by the scent of Steve’s blood that he can’t decide on what Steve is to him. He wants to say that Steve is just a meal waiting to happen, but the truth is, he doesn’t know. When Tony inevitably gives in and goes for Steve’s throat, it could go either way. Maybe Tony will pin Steve against the wall and suck him dry. Maybe he’ll take control, keep the straining mass of Steve in place while he takes what he wants. But just as easily, they could be evenly matched, fighting and fighting until they both succumb to exhaustion. Steve could be stronger than Tony, too. Maybe he'll push Tony back and take his shield and slice off his head. Who knows.

Steve doesn’t know what he does to Tony just by standing in the same room. The scent is so strong that Tony can smell him from three floors away. Tony has to breathe through his mouth when they’re in the same room, or else the smell clogs up in his nose, entering into his every pore, and drives him insane with want. His breaths are measured, in, out, in, out, until Steve leaves again and Tony can relax marginally. 

* * *

The super-soldier serum will be the death of Tony, or Steve, or both. The smell alone is divine. Tony can’t imagine what the taste will be like. He won’t be able to stop once he gets his teeth into Steve. He’ll suck and suck and suck until Steve dies or until Steve kills Tony. It’s inevitable.

He’s known it since the first time he took off his helmet in Steve’s presence, that night in Stuttgart. The smell hit Tony like a brick wall, making him choke on it. Even Loki’s inhuman scent-- wrong and biting sharp-- paled in comparison to the heavy drug that was Steve. 

Tony slammed the faceplate down, because it was that or jump Steve, and ignored the hurt confusion on the Captain’s face. 

The first days with Steve were hell. Tony had been so high strung that he almost bared his teeth when Steve insulted him in front of the whole team. When Steve told him to back off, Tony wanted to push him right back, get into his space, and test which of them was stronger. It didn’t come to that, thankfully. They fought against aliens whose blood smelled like decay, Tony flew a missile into a wormhole, and suddenly he and Steve were friends and the Avengers were living in Tony’s tower. 

He doesn’t mind. They’re doing good, fighting the fight that needs to be fought. Saving people. 

It goes against Tony’s nature. He wants to see people bleed, not patch them up. He knows that this isn’t what someone in their right mind would say. He knows his worldview is distorted, skewed beyond recognition. He isn’t the Tony Stark he was before Afghanistan. He isn’t even better than that Tony. In fact, when he hasn’t slept in a little too many hours, he thinks that he came back worse, rotten through and through where before there was still a healthy core deep in his chest. He thinks that between the shrapnel shredding his heart and his transformation giving him a new one, there is nothing left of the old Tony Stark. 

The funny thing is, no one has noticed. No one knows what Tony is. It’s easy enough to hide. Tony can get his hands on blood easily, especially animal blood. He doesn’t need to go outside a lot and can explain the rashes and burns on his skin as a newly developed sun allergy (he spent a lot of time in the sun, during those three months, you see.) He masters his gag reflex and sits through dinners, vomiting everything back up the moment he gets the chance. 

He wears his sunglasses all the time, to protect his eyes from the glare of too-harsh light, but also to keep his eyes from shining ghastly in the dark. He smiles with his mouth closed, rebrands his persona to fit the repenting superhero. He wears darker colours, but that’s just because he likes it, wearing wine red, blood red, crimson. He likes reminding himself of what he is.

No one knows, and Tony plans to keep it that way. He’s not interested in being hunted down like the monster he is. He...dislikes the idea of the precious few people he calls friends turning their back on him. Especially now that he’s getting along with Steve.

Tony can’t help himself, he’s drawn to Steve. He invites him down to the workshop, gives him art supplies, insinuates himself in Steve’s life. He can’t stay away. He’s a parasite leeching onto the best thing that comes close enough.

The worst part is, Steve doesn’t seem to mind. How is Tony supposed to resist Steve if Steve wants to spend time with Tony? How can Tony fight his instincts if Steve comes to him when he works, bringing him a sandwich and a cup of coffee, asking for nothing in return but company?

Steve talks and laughs with Tony, opens himself up just a little more every time they spend time together, and Tony doesn’t know what he wants most: to kiss Steve, or to kill him.

* * *

Three weeks after the battle of New York, Steve puts team training sessions in place. The activities range from mock-missions to fights in full gear to tactical programs to sparring. Tony immediately tries to come up with a good excuse to avoid sparring. He doesn’t know how to move or fight like a human anymore. He can hide behind the armour in fights, pretend that the unnaturally fast reflexes are thanks to Jarvis. The armour is a crutch, in more ways than one. He doesn’t want to smell sweat and adrenaline and blood up close. He’s not stupid enough to think that there won’t be any blood in Avengers sparring sessions. It happens fast. A wrong fall; a scraped knuckle; a bloody nose, are to be expected sooner or later. Tony doesn’t need that siren-song. 

Steve won’t let it lie. He insists. Tells Tony he needs the practice. What if his armour is incapacitated? He needs to be able to stand his own, can’t he understand that he isn’t invincible without his suit? Tony wants to answer that the day someone gets him out of the armour will be the last day of that person. He’s itching to sink his fangs into anything, anyone, when he fights, and if he gets out of the armour, it’s game over for everyone. Including himself, of course, because then everyone will know what he is. He’s honestly surprised that it hasn’t happened already. Maybe JARVIS is making sure that the opportunity never arises. God knows that _Tony_ isn’t. 

Steve won’t let Tony skip the sparring. After a few shouting matches (except that’s not true. They haven’t had real shouting matches since the one on the Helicarrier. In fact, Steve and Tony get along well. Too well), the self-destructive not-so-insignificant part of Tony rears its ugly head and whispers that Tony might just as well accept if Steve’s the one to spar with Tony. After all, Tony’s been hungering after a more hands-on encounter with Steve. This isn’t exactly how Tony’s been imagining it, but it’s close enough. Tony accepts, and Steve marches him down to the gym to spar right this instant. 

Tony sees exactly how badly he’s miscalculated when Steve strips right in front of him to change into workout clothes. One instant, Tony’s looking at a handsome body hidden under clothes, and the next, there’s the object of his fantasies in touching distance. Tony can’t keep his eyes away from the chiselled muscles bunching and stretching as Steve removes his T-shirt and jeans. Tony can see a vein pulsing along Steve’s upper thigh. He wants to sink his teeth into it. He’d do it, right here, right now. He’d slide to his knees and wrap his hands around Steve and taste what he wants. The smell alone is almost too much. 

He’s not here for that, however. He forces his gaze away from the sex dream in front of him and changes quickly. When he looks up again, he catches Steve staring at his back. Tony smirks to himself. Good to know the attraction isn’t entirely one-sided. He might have some fun with Steve after all.

They start light, stretching for five minutes, doing a few burpies, running two laps across the gym to get the body warm and the blood flowing. Every time Steve breathes, he pushes oxygen into his lungs, oxygen that passes through the respiratory membranes into his bloodstream into his muscles. If he exerts his muscles, they’ll ask for more oxygen and he’ll breathe heavier and his heart will beat faster and there will be so much movement in his veins, and Tony can almost hear the blood rushing. He should make Steve break a sweat, put him through his paces, anything to make the flow of the blood in his arteries stronger. If Tony bit Steve’s bicep, he bets it would spurt out like water from a burst pipe. Beautiful. 

When they’re both ready for sparring, they circle each other, both waiting for the other to attack first. Tony suspects that Steve wants Tony to make the first move, to gauge his skills, and react accordingly. Tony wants Steve to go first because then he’ll have a baseline of what a normal human should be able to do and dodge. Steve will go easy on him, and Tony needs that to understand how much of his strength he needs to keep under wraps. If none of them sets this in motion, they’ll turn in circles forever. Can Tony risk to attack? He’s watched Clint and Natasha, he can copy them. But would it be weird for him to be as strong as Clint? Or as fast as Natasha? Maybe he should tone it down. But not too much, because then he’ll come across as a weakling, and that is something the hunter in him bristles at. 

Steve takes the decision out of Tony’s hands when he jumps across the mats, lunging at Tony. It’s a straightforward attack, Tony sees three different ways to evade it already, but the feral part of him wants him to jump right back at Steve, collide in mid-air and sink his teeth into his neck. Tony compromises with a side-step combined with a headlock. For a second, Tony squeezes too much, and Steve chokes slightly, the sound pulling Tony into a vision of Steve choking on his own blood. It distracts him enough for Steve to drop his weight and elbow him in the stomach. Tony stumbles back and barely blocks a side kick. Steve grins at him, the smile sharp and hungry. He’s like Tony in that aspect, he knows the fight and enjoys it. He has killed his fair share of humans and aliens alike. He knows what it is to see your enemy’s blood on your hands and have your own sing in response. Tony grins back at him, a curl of the upper lip, a smile that doesn’t show the bottom of his upper teeth, hiding the fangs. 

This time, Tony’s the one to attack. He brings his knee high up as if he’s going to kick, but at the last moment, he turns it into a jump and kicks forward with his other foot. Steve bats it aside in a strong block, stepping in to backhand Tony. Tony drops to a crouch and rolls away to avoid Steve’s low sweep. He doesn’t have the time to stand straight before Steve jumps in with a right hook. Tony grabs his wrist and uses Steve’s momentum to send him to the ground, keeping hold of Steve’s wrist to get an elbow lock. Steve twists before Tony can secure the lock, bending his arm and pushing himself to his knees and hand, his wrist still in Tony’s grip. Tony doesn’t know if that last twist should have been enough to dislodge him and at this point he doesn’t care. All he wants is to win. He uses Steve’s spin against himself and bends his arm against his back, bringing the wrist up high between Steve’s shoulder blades. Tony drops a knee on the small of Steve’s back, forcing Steve flat against the mat. Tony slowly brings the wrist higher and higher until Steve taps the mat twice. Tony stills and lets himself grin savagely for a second. He’s won. He doesn’t let Steve go, not just yet. He needs to bask in it first, in the fact that Steve is under him, pinned to the mat. Tony lets his head drop to Steve’s shoulder and huffs out a laugh. Under him, Steve’s relaxed, laughing breathlessly himself. This was more intense than either of them anticipated. Steve smells delectable, the musk of sweat only enhancing the sweet fragrance of the serum. Tony darts his tongue out, the tip touching Steve’s neck for just a moment, and Steve shivers at the touch. Tony won’t mention it if Steve doesn’t ask what just brushed him. For all he knows, it was Tony’s nose, or a drop of sweat. 

It wasn’t satisfying enough a taste, but the salty tang ripples through Tony. It’s more than he should know about Steve, and yet it’s not enough. 

Steve’s neck is a wonderful shade of red, blood rushing to the surface capillaries, just millimetres away from the surface. Tony wants to see where the blush ends. He puts a little more weight on his knee, just because he can, and stands up. Steve loses no time in turning around, the blush ever more pronounced on his face. 

They resume the sparring without a word. Tony keeps himself in check this time, tries to never exceed the power and speed he used during the first round. Steve is agile and fast, and has a few tricks down his sleeve that allow him to throw Tony down on the mat several times. Each time, Tony has to grit his teeth to stave off the bloodcurdling anger, the enraged voice inside of his head that howls at him to make Steve pay, to show him who’s most powerful, most dangerous, most lethal.

As the minutes tick by, the smell of sweat impregnates the gym. It fills Tony’s nostrils, creeps into his mouth, stings his eyes. Steve’s smell and his own intermingle until they’re indistinguishable from one another, and Tony can barely keep from salivating. There’s no blood, thankfully. If there were, Tony is under no illusion that he wouldn’t lose his mind. He’s already high from the adrenaline rush. He’s already one inch away from jumping Steve and rutting mindlessly against him. 

They fight and grapple and throw and punch and kick and Tony feels _alive_. He doesn’t understand why he resisted doing this. This is what he was made for. He runs toward Steve, intent on tackling him, but Steve goes with the momentum, gets an arm under Tony’s shoulder and flips him over his own. Tony lands hard on the mat, twists too fast and sweeps Steve’s legs from under him. Steve doesn’t quite manage to land in a handstand (the show-off) and collapses on himself. Tony wastes no time in crawling over him, going for a stranglehold or wrist lock. Steve halts Tony’s advance by locking his legs around Tony’s waist and grabbing Tony’s wrists in his hands. Tony elbows Steve in the solar plexus, wrenching his wrists free as Steve struggles to breathe. Tony lets himself drop against Steve, pinning his hands above his head.

They’re in a stand-off. Steve has control over their lower bodies, but Tony is steady enough on his knees to resist any attempt at rolling over. He could try to dislodge Steve’s legs around him, but for that he needs his elbows and hands, and they’re busy holding Steve down. They’re almost nose to nose.

Steve’s blush is back in full force, and this time Tony can see his mouth as his lips part in a silent “o” of surprise, the widening of his eyes, the lashes that are sinfully long, the straight line of his nose, the arched brows. There’s a strand of hair that’s gotten loose from Steve’s head, and it curls slightly over his forehead, damp with sweat. Steve’s eyes are the same blue as tightly compressed glacier ice. They’re the only cool thing in Steve’s face. 

They lock gazes. Tony’s chest is heaving against Steve’s. Their hearts are beating almost in tandem. Steve’s shirt is soaked through, leaving little up to the imagination. Tony would just need to lower himself those last few inches to kiss Steve. He could bend his neck, bite at one of Steve’s nipples. Tony is willing to bet his fortune that Steve would arch beautifully into the pain. With Steve’s heightened pain threshold, Tony would be able to bite hard enough to bruise. He’d see the capillaries burst before his eyes. All that blood, just a bite away. 

Steve’s eyes are half-lidded, his gaze fixed on Tony’s mouth. His body is thrumming with contained energy, but his hands are open and lax against the mat. His thighs flex around Tony. Steve is all power and strength, a mountain lion in a human skin. Right now, he’s giving that power over to Tony. He’s waiting for Tony’s next move, still and silent. The perfect image of obedience. Tony could devour him whole and Steve would only bare his neck to make the access easier. It’s heady. It’s so easy to imagine a similar scene in a different setting. Steve looking at him like that, surrendering to Tony, sprawled across Tony’s bed. Tony wouldn’t even need to cuff him, he’d stay still just because Tony told him to, using that extraordinary muscle control to move less than a statue. Tony would lick him all over, suck bruises into his neck and collarbones. He’d play with Steve’s nipples, get them nice and hard, until they were as red as Steve’s lips. Tony would nip at his chest, his stomach, his trembling abdominals, skip to the inside of Steve’s thighs, and Steve would just shudder and take it. He would make those high, needy, bitten-off noises. Tony would tease him until he begged for more, until he begged for a real bite, for teeth under his skin, for his blood to leave him. He’d plead for Tony to bite him, suck him, take him. 

Tony can’t suppress a low moan at the thought, and the sound makes Steve’s hips stutter upwards, grinding against Tony. They both freeze at the feeling. It’s enough to break the spell. Tony lets Steve go, stumbles to his feet, and practically runs away. At the door, he can’t resist a glance backwards. Steve is lying in the same position as Tony left him, eyes wide, blushing furiously. There’s just a hint of bruises on his wrists, and Tony has to pinch himself to keep from jumping the distance and enacting everything he fantasized about. He stutters out a thanks for the spar and goes straight to the workshop.

He drinks the whole stash of pig blood he has there, guzzling it down until he’s so full he could burst. It spills out of the clear plastic bags onto the floor, Tony’s clothes, the tools nearby. Tony rips everything apart in his feeding frenzy. He’s foaming at the mouth, snapping tools in half, sinking his teeth into anything that will yield enough. 

It’s better than doing it to Steve, he tells himself.

* * *

Tony isn’t a vampire, not exactly. He’s still alive, for one. It’s just that now, he feeds on blood. His DNA was changed when Yinsen turned him. Tony’s most probably a mutant or a mutate, one that developed bat-like qualities. 

It’s not all that bad. He has enhanced strength and regeneration to make hunting humans easier, and garlic isn’t dangerous to him, it just fucking stinks.

Tony’s alive, which means that he can die. He thinks decapitation or a bullet through the head would kill him. He isn’t sure. JARVIS wouldn’t let him experiment too much on himself.

He can still pass as human, and when the bloodlust engulfs him, there’s always Iron Man. He can pretend to be a hero and assuage his hunger at the same time. Every time he kills someone, he exults. JARVIS points him towards the right targets, the ones that deserve to die, and Tony guns them down. It’s a win-win situation: he gets to see all the blood he wants, and the people he saves see him as a hero.

He does good as Iron Man, and that almost makes up for the fact that he’s a monster that doesn’t care who he kills.

* * *

When Tony lets himself think back to the sparring session, he realises: Steve _likes_ him. Steve is attracted to him. Steve wants him. Tony doesn’t know why or how, but the facts are there. In hindsight, it’s obvious.

This should make Tony happy. They’re both attracted to one another. They both like each other. They do. Just because Tony wants to bleed Steve out doesn’t mean he can’t like him as well. How many humans have bonded with their hens, kept them as pets, lovingly knitted scarves and hats for them, only to drink them up in a nice broth when they were too old to lay eggs?

This isn’t anything different. The wolf can be a lamb’s best friend. Steve and Tony’s friendship is all the more piquant because there might be a lion hiding underneath the sheep’s wool. Tony won’t know until it’s too late to disengage.

* * *

Tony never understood why Yinsen kept him alive. He had every reason to kill Tony, to let him die. Yinsen had lost everything because of Tony, and yet he saved his life. Tony’ll never know why Yinsen turned him. Sometimes he thinks it was to force him to deal with the consequences of the destruction he reaped. Sometimes he thinks that it was fate that put him there, under Yinsen’s teeth. Yinsen was the final step in Tony’s metamorphosis from genius child to Merchant of Death. Now Tony’s very being is centred around killing. 

Yinsen forced Tony to stay in this world, and Tony has to deal with that. He still oscillates between seeing this as his penance or a stolen chance. He won’t lie, there’s been a few times where he’s spent a little too long staring down the barrel of a gun, or into the glow of the repulsor node on his gauntleted hand. 

Yinsen told him something when he died, but Tony couldn’t hear him over the sound of gunfire. He’s sure they were inspiring words. It could have been anything. A man’s last words, and they were lost in the fight around him.

Tony wonders what Yinsen would say to him now, lusting after Steve, ready to kill or be killed over a few drops of blood.

* * *

Steve likes Tony, and Tony likes Steve. They’re avoiding each other like teenagers. Does Steve write Tony’s name in his notebook? Does he draw little hearts with T+S in the middle? Does he dream of Tony, does he lust after Tony as Tony lusts after Steve? Does he think back to their sparring session when he’s in his bed? Does he touch himself at the memory? Does he thirst after Tony, does he want to taste him like Tony wants to taste Steve?

They dance around each other, and still it’s evident that this phase, too, won’t last. One day one of them will trip into the other’s space and they will take this one step further. Tony has smelled Steve, has had his sweat on his tongue, and he longs for more. 

He wants Steve, and he wants his blood.

* * *

On their seventh fight as Avengers, Steve gets injured. He brawls with a saber-toothed tiger (this fight is against a magician who’s put life into old fossils) and the tiger rips his sleeve off, tearing open Steve’s shoulder. The wound isn’t very deep, and Steve carries on with the fight until he subdues the tiger. Tony’s busy with three mammoths, so he doesn’t see Steve (only hears his quiet gasp of pain on the comms) until they’re done with the fight. Tony touches down, a safe distance from the animals and wounded, and flips his faceplate up before turning around and coming face to face to Steve, blood still oozing from his wound. Tony freezes as the sight and smell overwhelm him. It’s so close, and there, and available. Tony could take three steps, kneel down, and lick at the wound. It’s already open and pulsing for him. 

He’s striding forward and grabbing Steve’s wrist before he knows what he’s doing. There’s a small line of blood that has travelled down Steve’s arm, dividing into rivulets and patterns on Steve’s hand, pooling on the fine membrane between Steve’s thumb and index. As Tony picks the wrist up, the blood drips onto the gauntlet of his armour, crimson blending with crimson. He’s touching Steve, is touching Steve’s blood. The smell is cloying, so close to his nostrils. He wants to drown in it. 

Steve coughs, and Tony breaks free from the all-encompassing need for long enough to remember his place. He lets Steve’s wrist go as if burned and makes a show of examining the shoulder wound, without actually looking at it. He’s holding his breath the whole time. If he could get away with it, he would have screwed his eyes shut to remove any temptation. When he’s done, he taps Steve lightly on his good shoulders, takes a few hasty steps back, and spouts something along the lines of the wound looking good and not infected. Tony has no idea if what he said is true or not, but he doesn’t care. Steve’s looking a little weirdly at him, but Tony counts this as a success. He hightails it out of there. 

When he’s in the workshop, he takes care to disengage every part of the armour except for his right gauntlet. The blood on it hasn’t even dried yet. If he tilts his hand, there’s a faint glimmer, the slightest hint that there is something coating the deep red of the armour. To the naked eye, it might look like water. But the liquid is too thick, and the darkening of the wet parts of the gauntlet betray that it’s blood. Tony should wash the gauntlet, disinfect it, burn it. He can’t leave highly classified super-soldier DNA on his suit. 

He won’t do that, though.

The moment he kept the gauntlet on instead of sending it to decontamination along with the rest of the suit, he abandoned all pretence. The only thing that’s going to happen to that blood is that Tony is going to lick it up. Like a dog slobbering over a bone, Tony will lick his own hand, clean it up until there isn’t anything left. He thinks that if Steve were in his shoes, he’d do the same. Reason flies out of the window when super-soldier blood is involved. It’s there, it smells like addiction, and now Tony can get a taste. It will ruin him, ruin him for any blood other than Steve’s. Drinking animal blood is already disgusting enough as it is. When he gets his first taste of Steve’s blood, he won’t even be satisfied with regular human blood, he can feel it. It’s not enough of a deterrent to keep him from putting his mouth to his own wrist, in a parody of a kiss. He sucks, and the taste explodes on his tongue, in his mouth, behind his teeth. The high is instantaneous. He’s floating, or maybe he’s falling, his legs not strong enough to hold him upright. This is what absolute bliss feels like. Drugs, alcohol, sex have _nothing_ on this. His entire body sings with it. He could do anything, right this moment, he’s unstoppable. This, this is what Tony needs. This is what he craves. This is the only food that will truly, deeply, satisfy him. He can’t get enough. He laps at the gauntlet, on the palm, between the fingers, sucking them down to the knuckles. He cleans the gauntlet, uncaring of the dirt and dust that comes with the blood. The blood is all he can taste anyway. It fills him up, lifts him higher than he’s ever been. It’s everything he imagined it would be, and more. 

He needs another taste. 

The gauntlet is licked clean, the dull shine of the blood replaced with the glistening of saliva. Even the smell is gone, Tony’s done such a thorough job. There’s nothing left. He should have touched Steve for longer. Should have let the blood soak through. Should have offered Steve a ride home; he would have bled all over the armour. Tony shivers at the thought and tries to ignore the raging hunger for more.

It’s too late, now, isn’t it? Tony’s sealed his own fate. He’s gotten a taste, and it wasn’t enough. It’s only a matter of time before he comes back for more. Tony can’t wait to taste Steve again.

* * *

Tony’s life is a series of mistakes. Looking up to his father, trusting Obadiah, trusting Yinsen, keeping himself alive, letting the Avengers in. Mistake after mistake, and he made the worst one yet when he let himself get a flavour of Steve. He was always going to, but he’s given in too soon. How long have the Avengers been assembled? A few months at most? It’s not enough to have settled into anything. It’s not long enough for the team to survive what’s about to happen between Steve and Tony. With a little bit of luck, Tony will be the one to die when it goes down. He hopes he’ll get at least one good suck in before that happens, though. What better way to die, than tasting the sweet ambrosia of Steve’s blood?

And if Steve survives, the Avengers will still have their leader. They’ll replace Tony with Rhodey, and they’ll still have all the funding they need. It’ll be fine. 

If Tony survives, on the other hand, he’ll either get executed, or taken by SHIELD to be experimented on. Tony doesn’t think he’ll be in any state of mind other than bliss after sucking Steve dry, he’ll be easy to catch. But on the off chance that he escapes, what will he become? A fugitive? A beast roaming dark alleys and abandoned houses? A new urban legend, the kind that kids whisper to others late at night? An uptick in statistics for bloody anonymous murders?

He won’t be Tony Stark, that’s for sure. Whatever happens when Steve and he collide, he won’t get out of it unscathed. The anticipation is killing Tony. It’s like an electric current, buzzing through his bones, making his hands shake just a little. Soon. Soon, he’ll know. 

It can’t come soon enough. Tony isn’t thinking about much else than Steve, these days. He knows what his essence, his life, tastes like. The metallic tang of the serum-enhanced blood is uniquely Steve. It’s crisp and fresh and bubbling with energy. Tony wonders if Steve’s mouth has the same flavour. Would there be the same aftertaste? If Tony bit his lip, let saliva and blood mingle, would it taste sweet? Would Steve like it? Would he encourage Tony to nip, bite, pierce his skin? Would he blush that same pretty, healthy, rosy shade he did in the gym? What kinds of noises would he make? Would he let Tony do anything he wanted to Steve? Would he submit, would he fight, would he take control? Would he surrender to his arousal, to his desire, to Tony?

Tony desperately needs to know. 

* * *

The first human blood Tony tasted was Obadiah’s blood. It was leagues better than animal blood. It was fresher, richer, tastier. Cow blood was to human blood like piss-cheap beer was to a decade-old single malt whiskey. There was no comparison to be made.

Tony loved every drop of Obie’s blood.

He’s tasted blood since, stolen from hospitals, bought on the black market. Sucked from a one-night stand’s neck. Licked from an victim’s corpse.

(JARVIS isn’t always with Tony. Sometimes, Tony leaves the tower and hunts.) 

* * *

It’s a matter of days before Tony’s life as he knows it ends. Tony isn’t even trying to be polite about his hunger anymore. Every time he and Steve are in the same room, he doesn’t look away from the super-soldier. Several times now, he’s licked his lips unconsciously while watching Steve, as JARVIS has told him. Tony wants to gorge himself on Steve, and he wants Steve to know it. 

Steve might see the predatory glint in Tony’s eyes, or he might mistake it for simple lust. Tony won’t tell him what’s really waiting for him. It’s up to Steve to find out what Tony is, and if he doesn’t realise before Tony makes his move, well, it’ll be easier to get a bite in.

Tony just needs to make up his mind about when and how it will happen. He won’t ask Steve out, because there’s still a distant part of him that’s trying to stop this from happening. Steve will have to take the leap, then. But when, and how? He’s most likely thought about it a lot. Is Steve the kind of man who takes people on dates before he kisses them for the first time? Is he the kind of man to buy flowers and ask politely for dinner? Or is he prone to acts of passion? Will he stride into Tony’s workshop (the place where Tony’s at his most powerful), grab his face, and kiss him? Or will he declare his undying love after a close call on a mission? 

Tony hopes that Steve will take the leap somewhere private. He’s 70% sure that this is how it will go, because he’s heard enough about Steve’s love-life to know that he isn’t really the kind of guy who advertises it for the whole world to see. Then again, Tony has come on very strong to Steve. Maybe he’s even being a bad influence. 

Steve is not a man that Tony can put into neat little boxes. He’s tried, but just when he thinks he knows who Steve is, a new side of his personality makes itself known. Steve is so much more than a soldier. He’s so much more than the man out of time. He’s devastatingly intelligent, emotional to a fault, and predictable until he isn’t. 

There is nothing Tony can do but wait and see. He’s ready. He’s prepared for everything. In the case that he survives, he’s put a comfortable sum of money aside, whipped up a few false identities, stuffed a duffel bag full of clothes and blood and sunscreen. 

He only needs to be patient. If he’s lucky, Steve’ll get injured a few times more between now and the end.

* * *

It’s mid-afternoon and Tony is alone in the team kitchen, sipping on a glass of water, looking out through the window. It’s a beautiful day.

He inhales, searching for the scent of Steve. It’s faint, but Tony can tell that Steve was here this morning. If he remembers correctly, Steve should be about done with training new SHIELD recruits. Depending on how it went, he’s headed for the gym or the kitchen.

Sure enough, it’s only a few minutes before the familiar scent invades Tony’s senses and the back of his neck prickles. He turns around to face Steve. He’s wearing his uniform, cowl down. He’s standing in parade rest, his shoulders drawn back tight, his chin high, hands behind his back. The blush high on his cheeks undermines the steely resolve in his eyes. Tony inhales through his nose. Under the alluring scent, there’s a tremor of fear. Steve is here for Tony, then. He’s going to lay everything out in the open. No more hiding, no more innuendos, no stolen glances. This is it.

Steve clears his throat, takes a few steps forward into Tony’s space. He’s within touching distance now, and Tony would only need an instant to sink his teeth in Steve’s neck. Their eyes are locked as Steve reveals what he’s been hiding behind his back. It’s stupidly, endearingly romantic: in his hand, there is a single rose.

The rose is blood red.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are greatly appreciated <3


End file.
